Liberte

Liberty - freedom of action.  There are many different interpretations of liberty, with some going so far as to advocate Anarchism, the absence of any systematic restrictions on the actions of individuals.  Oddly enough, such an extreme seems to actually result in less freedom of action.  Without any laws, there is no assurance that any two individuals are interacting with at least a basic common set of norms.  Thus, a state of complete anarchy will be roughly synonymous with Thomas Hobbes' state of nature in which "every man is enemy to every man" and "wherein men live without other security, than what their own strength, and their own invention shall furnish them.  In such condition there is no place for industry; because the fruit thereof is uncertain: and consequently no culture of the Earth; no navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be imported by sea; no commodious building; no instruments of moving, and removing such things as require much force; no knowledge of the face of the Earth; no account of time; no arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short."  It is a seemingly strange paradox that liberty depends, to some extent at least, upon the restrictions which society places upon the individual.

The challenge, then, is to determine to what extent liberty relies on restrictions.  A failure to determine the boundaries may inadvertently result in an unwarranted amount of restrictions and the strangling and death of liberty.  I submit, however, that there is no hard and fast rule which delineates the appropriate boundaries.  In fact, my talk of boundaries is misleading.  Rather, one must recognize the essential dependency of the one on the other.  Just as liberty depends upon law and order, law and order depend upon liberty.  Should the pendulum swing too far in the direction of restrictions, the populace will revolt.  I do not think that concerns over too much liberty (in such an instance, it might be better to call it simply license rather than liberty) or concerns over too much law (repression) will ever be settled.  Rather, one must constantly evaluate any given law (or even the general legal framework) to determine whether it increases or decreases the general liberty of society.